Ernestina Godoy, head of the Attorney General's Office, at a press conference.

Mexico’s Attorney General: Ken Salazar Lied and the FBI Gave False Data; They Violated International Law in the Capture of El Mayo

ByCésar Arellano and Gustavo Castillo

This article by César Arellano and Gustavo Castillo originally appeared in the July 8, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left-wing daily newspaper.

The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) opened new lines of investigation in the case of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and faces a scenario in which “three serious situations” were committed: “violations of Mexican and international law, the establishment of a pact outside the law, as well as a lie by a U.S. diplomat (former ambassador Ken Salazar),” which amounts to a transgression of the cornerstone principle of good faith in diplomatic relations, established in various international treaties.

This was pointed out by the head of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, Ernestina Godoy Ramos, who stated at a press conference that the violations of national and international law would have been committed “if the recent information is confirmed regarding the fact that the FBI acknowledges that it was a successful operation, planned, organized, and executed” by that U.S. agency.

These actions carried out by the FBI would have taken part in the capture and transfer of El Mayo Zambada in July 2024 to U.S. territory and his imprisonment in that country, which violated Mexican and international norms, a situation that was denied by Ken Salazar at the time.

“On August 9, 2024, the then U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, maintained that his country’s government did not participate in this operation, that it was not a U.S. aircraft, nor its pilot, nor its agents or its people in Mexico, but rather that it was an operation between cartels.”

The official explained that “faced with this scenario, the FGR is already carrying out new investigative actions and, first of all, through the international legal assistance mechanism, in accordance with the provisions of the bilateral treaty on the matter, a series of requests for information have been submitted so that the government provides the information related to the aforementioned events.”

She affirmed that despite the various occasions on which information about what happened has been requested from the U.S. government, on “various occasions they have given false or imprecise data,” not only regarding the identity of the person who piloted the plane in which El Mayo Zambada was transferred to the United States, but also other information requested through diplomatic channels to be incorporated into the investigations being carried out in national territory that are related to the homicide of the former rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, Héctor Melesio Cuén.